A commenter on an earlier thread, which touched on why police departments are seen as “paramilitary organizations,” writes:
Also relevant regarding the perceived more military nature of the police is the use now of the word “officer” to refer to what used to be called a “policeman” or “policewoman.” “Officer” is a term that has gained more currency in the last few decades as a result of gender equity (which also replaces “fireman” with “fire fighter”). I suspect you won’t see the phrase “police officer” much before 1960.
But why suspect when you can Google? Check out this Google Books query, and you’ll see that it had been used plenty of times before 1960. A similar query for “policeman” finds more, but not by a vast amount (365 to 137; ignore the reported hit counts, which aren’t reliable, even for comparison with each other, in Google Books, and instead go to the last page of the result).
Of course, it might well have been used even more frequently since then, compared to “policeman.” But it seems that both “police officer” and “policeman” were quite standard long before 1960.
Naturally, I can’t expect our readers to spend hours doing research before each comment. But an occasional quick query can do much, I think, to make comments and posts more accurate.
Westlaw says:
If you search westlaw for the phrase “police officer” in pre-1960 cases, you get over 10,000 hits. (Westlaw won’t give you more than that many hits for any search term.) If you search pre-1930 cases, you get about 9,000 hits. If you search pre-1850 cases, you get 57 hits. The first case that appears in westlaw that uses the term is from 1915.
March 15, 2010, 5:08 pmDoc Merlin says:
Traditionally law enforcement was a the function of either the standing army or an individual who was able to gather volunteer citizens to enforce laws.
Four things happened.
1. Militaries got much more specialized and their domestic use was socially stigmatized, so policing powers were separated out. This mirrored increasing specialization in society, as well.
2. Quite a few countries vastly reduced and or eliminated their standing armies, so they needed another policing force.
3. Law became more and more complex so volunteer citizen forces weren’t sufficient for the job.
4. Law enforcement became a source of revenue so full time, professional enforcers were hired.
March 15, 2010, 5:16 pmDoc Merlin says:
Hrm, coincides with the rise of the power of the progressive movement in the US.
March 15, 2010, 5:17 pmDuffy Pratt says:
Is it possible that, at one time, the words “police officer” actually referred to policemen with a particular rank, instead of to all policemen regardless of rank? In the military, there are many more soldiers who are not officers than soldiers who achieved that rank.
March 15, 2010, 5:32 pmepluribus says:
As one of the senior posters on this site (are there any older than I?), I can personally attest that the word “officer” was used to describe policemen long before 1960. Since police departments are organized along military lines (sergeants, lieutenants, captains), it never seemed remarkable to me.
March 15, 2010, 5:43 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
I think it would take a rather more elaborate Google Books search to find out, but surely there are instances of just plain “officer” (rather than the full “police officer”) where one might’ve seen “policeman” earlier. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think a straight “policeman” / “police officer” comparison works, because one so often sees “officer” w/o “police”; OTOH without context it’s difficult to know if a particular reference to an “officer” is to a police officer.
If you want to do this properly, IOW, you really will have to go through an awful lot of books instance by instance.
March 15, 2010, 5:43 pmTony says:
I suspect many commenters are too lazy to take your advice.
March 15, 2010, 5:43 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
epluribus,
Were there ever the equivalent of foot soldiers? I mean, was every policeman an “officer,” or just some? (Not snark; genuinely asking for information.)
March 15, 2010, 5:45 pmepluribus says:
I know that there was a time when there were no police of any kind in many American municipalities. I believe that law enforcement was the responsibility of sheriffs and marshals. This was true in the 19th century. Whether it continued to be true in the twentieth I don’t know.
March 15, 2010, 5:46 pmArkady says:
Indeed. My guess is that ‘police officer’ is just an extension, or transformation, of the term ‘peace officer’, which has been around like forever.
March 15, 2010, 5:56 pmBaseballhead says:
Why suspect when you can find out? Because finding out often means correcting oneself. Merely being suspicious means means never being wrong. Case in point:
March 15, 2010, 6:03 pmAk Mike says:
OK, perhaps I am guilty of unfounded suspicions. If I had checked, the story would have been a bit murky. On the one hand, plenty of uses of “police officer” or “police-officer” prior to 1960; indeed, prior to 1900. So there is no doubt that the term has been well established for a long time.
On the other hand, most of those uses (for the first few dozen listed, anyway) are legal – in statutes or ordinances, or law reports. A similar search for “policeman” turns up not only literary uses, but also treatises, journals and occupational manuals.
If you change the dates of the “police officer” search to 1960-2010, the first listing is the text “Police Officer” which announces itself as a revised edition of the landmark “Policeman.” Almost none of the first few dozen listings are legal. Actually, they are mostly occupational. To the extent that a Google Books search is data rather than just the plural of anecdote, it seems that in the last few decades there has been a decided shift of social identification of these civil servants from “policemen” (“-women”) to “police officers.”
So: (1) the first two sentences of my comment still seem right; (2) the last sentence is certainly wrong as it stands, but if I had added “in non-official usage” it would have been pretty close; (3) simple searches on Google Books or the like lead away from short punchy comments but you don’t necessarily wind up much the wiser.
March 15, 2010, 6:07 pmpete says:
Based on my memory most noir detective books and movies of the 30s refered to “officers” pretty regularly as well.
A quick google book search for “officer detective” while looking for the above answer found the book “Reflections of a Detective Police Officer” published london 1859
And here is laws of the state of deleware 1891 which referes to “officer of police, or detective” on page 439.
There were a couple of other similar late 19th century returns and I did not look too hard.
March 15, 2010, 6:07 pmAk Mike says:
epluribus – by the way, I’m surprised that you’re not surprised given your logic – you say that “officer” makes sense given the military structure of police departments, with sergeants, lieutenants, and captains. But if that’s the case, how come police sergeants outrank police officers?
March 15, 2010, 6:10 pmepluribus says:
Ak Mike:
Please, Ak Mike! If you want to disagree with a post, disagree with what the poster said, not with what he/she didn’t say. Here is what I said:
I said that the use of the word “officer” “to describe policemen” never seemed “remarkable” to me. I didn’t use the word “surprise.” Nor did I express any opinion about whether a police “officer’ would/should/could outrank a “sergeant.” All of that seems to be a figment of your imagination.
March 15, 2010, 6:38 pmAntinome says:
Anyone else suddenly have “Gee, Officer Krupke” (West Side Story, 1957-Broadway)running through their head.
March 15, 2010, 6:39 pmPintler says:
I’m not sure there is a lot of consistency – lieutenant generals outrank major generals, after all. And of course, sergeant majors outrank intelligent second lieutenants (but not dumb ones) :-).
As to the origin of calling cops ‘officer’, Rubinstein’s ‘City Police’ quotes a source that uses the term in 1610 (William Lambard, ‘The Duties of Constables, Borsholders, Tythingmen’).
FWIW, I have heard rumors that some state troopers take umbrage at being called ‘Officer’ in lieu of ‘Trooper’.
Well, we still have Texas Rangers! (I’m not from TX, but their modern role seems to be a little different than portrayed in old western movies :-))
March 15, 2010, 6:44 pmCal Attny says:
I prefer to suspect…I dont let facts stand in the way of an argument.
March 15, 2010, 6:44 pmArkady says:
Wilkie Collins’s novel The Moonstone, generally considered to be the first detective novel (1868), uses the term ‘police officer’ in a number of places.
March 15, 2010, 6:55 pmKazinski says:
I don’t think it laziness per se, probably just a foreboding feeling that whatever research they do won’t support what they know to be true. Kind of like the Dan Rather/Mary Mapes TNG memos, they didn’t want to research the authenticity of the memos because it would contradict what they knew was true.
March 15, 2010, 7:03 pmBarston says:
epluribus says: “… the word “officer” was used to describe policemen long before 1960. Since police departments are organized along military lines (sergeants, lieutenants, captains), it never seemed remarkable to me.”
||
The police ‘officer rank’ of “4-Star General” has become extremely common now {4 Gold stars on the lapel}. I frequently see it on routine TV news coverage.
Every podunk county sheriff and city police chief seems to sport that exalted military rank. I’ve even seen 5-Star insignia. That was unheard of before 1960… the rank of colonel — heading a large state-police department was about the highest you would ever see on a cop.
It’s silly that these low level armed-bureaucrats view themselves as a General Patton, commanding a 100,000 man army. But it is a subtle sign of excessive militarization in normal municipal police and rural sheriff departments.
Title and rank changes are minor indicators of militarization; but the big indicators are adoption of military weaponry, tactics, and attitude — which has been extreme in the last 10 years.
March 15, 2010, 7:17 pmMalvolio says:
Now I do. Gee, Officer Krupke, krup you!
In the newspaper business, they say “too good to check”.
There’s an old joke than you can reconstitute yourself from the punchline: “Another good story ruined by an eyewitness.”
“Trooper” seems very familiar, like calling a Marine “gyrene” or “jarhead” to his face: you better be good friends with the guy and you better be smiling.
March 15, 2010, 7:24 pmPintler says:
Was that what your research showed? :-)
March 15, 2010, 7:35 pmAk Mike says:
epluribus – why isn’t it remarkable that a sergeant should outrank an officer, if “police departments are organized along military lines”? (Is that better? I’m disagreeing with what you said.)
Kazinski – the real foreboding is that a couple of minutes won’t really answer the question (unless the question is just “did people ever use the term ‘police officer’ before 1960″?). If we want to know whether the gender equity issue has resulted in a change in the way people refer to these members of the law enforcement community, it will take hours, or days, or longer. Just looking at a list of Google Books would be barely a start.
Arkady – I noticed in looking through the list that Our Host provided for us that a few of the uses of “police-officer” were from Dickens, and some from (translated) Russian or French literary sources. I suspect (ha!) that the usage may have been more common in Britain than in the United States. But I’m too lazy and filled with foreboding to check it out.
March 15, 2010, 7:36 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
My impression was that the cop on the beat was a footsoldier and that you called him “officer” to flatter him so he’d give you a break. That was back when they had cops on beats.
March 15, 2010, 7:42 pmPintler says:
For clarity, in the anecdote I heard, someone addressed a state trooper as ‘Officer’, and was firmly, even unpleasantly, told the correct title was ‘Trooper’. I make no claim that another trooper would not prefer the reverse. Perhaps one should play it safe and always use ‘Chief’ :-). I never mind calling cops ‘Officer’; I figure it balances out being called @#$$%^&&&* $%^&&**( the rest of the time.
Kind of like calling judges ‘Your Honor’ :-). That always seems a little over the top to me; if ‘Mr. President’ suffices, surely ‘Ms. Judge’ would set the proper tone.
March 15, 2010, 8:11 pmDG says:
{lieutenant generals outrank major generals}
This is because the original title for major general was “sergeant major general” and lieutenant generals outranked them. See wikipedia for a good discussion on this.
On the subject: I once read an early criminology book that made a chapter long argument that “police officer” was preferential to “policeman” or “patrolman” because such police had personal responsibilities equivalent to commissioned officers in the military. It was a ludicrous argument then, and it hasn’t gotten any better.
March 15, 2010, 8:30 pmPintler says:
I dunno. In ‘The Real Police’ by David Ziskin (a charming, insightful book, BTW), he makes the point that the first officer on the scene makes the majority of the crucial, life or death decisions that the police department makes. I don’t get the impression that buck privates make that many crucial decisions in the military. I’m not sure this is surprising – a typical officer on patrol is going to have had several years of experience – in the military he would be a senior noncom at the least.
March 15, 2010, 8:43 pmLior says:
Even easier than Google: go the OED, which has the following to say regarding “policeman”:
In fact, the earliest citation they have for “policeman” is from 1788, for “police officer” from 1784. This doesn’t say anything about the relative frequencies of the two terms, of course.
March 15, 2010, 9:23 pmAllan Leedy says:
Would this be anything like having arms inspectors look for weapons before concluding that a particular country possesses them?
March 15, 2010, 10:24 pmHarryEagar says:
Try Offisa Pup in the Krazy Kat comic strip.
Officer had to be pretty common in order to be spoofed in a mass market comic.
March 15, 2010, 11:18 pmJKB says:
Police officers are civil officers who are warranted or commissioned to act with arrest powers. As civil officers they are/were called officers. Deputy comes from the authority of a Sheriff to deputize individuals to assist him in executing his required patrols and other duties. And of course, every state is different since the police powers must in some way be delegated from the State Executive.
March 16, 2010, 2:44 amD.O. says:
Google Books dates are notoriously wrong. You might find a lot of discussion in Prof. Volokh’ favorite Language Log. By the way, why posting on the ease of google search not to look at a fuller picture? I’ve done it for you.
…………………. before 1960 after 1960
“police officer”…… 156………371
policeman………… 365………296
policewoman…….. 343………404
That is, police officer is on the rise compared to policeman, but policeman and police officer are behind policewoman. Huh?
March 16, 2010, 3:44 amSmoking Frog says:
The complaint about “police officer” is ridiculous.
1. My father was a police officer from the 1930s until the 1960s (except time out for WWII), and he used the term “police officer” countless times.
2. When I was a little kid in the late 1940s and early 1950s, policemen were always addressed as “Officer [so and so]. I recall saying, “Hi, Officer [so and so]” to the policeman that directed traffic in the center of town. Similarly, if you didn’t know a policeman’s name, you’d address him as “officer.” How else would they be addressed!?
March 16, 2010, 4:55 ammarkm says:
Ak Mike: Perhaps the police ranks were set up by former military Sergeants – who, in my experience, were never in much doubt that they were the ones really running things.
March 16, 2010, 7:35 amDerHahn says:
I’m not gonna google for it :) but I’ve observed a trend in news reporting that might confound attempts to determine how frequently ‘police officer/officer’ vs ‘policeman/policewoman’ are used in contemporary speech that might speak to D.O.’s observation.
One of the ways that people avoid using gender specific nouns is to use honorifics (the trooper, a detective, the sergeant) rather than generic terms when refering to individual sworn officers but not using their name. The exception is usually made for the use of the female gendered (policewoman/policewomen) noun when it makes sense to use it in the report, i.e. ‘policewomen allege discrimination’.
Finding more contemporary uses of ‘policewomen’ than ‘policeman’ or ‘police officer’ doesn’t seem unusual.
March 16, 2010, 9:09 amFormer Army MP says:
I suspect prior to the need to shade out the gender of the cop…
some states commission their law enforcment persons (themselves or the local units of government), and their cops would be called officers.
Other states only certify or swear in their police (or in some cases elect), so they would be policemen.
March 16, 2010, 1:16 pmLarryA says:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/peace%20officer
March 16, 2010, 1:18 pmPeace officer
Function: noun
Date: 1714
: a civil officer (as a police officer) whose duty it is to preserve the public peace
bryclops says:
If you want to check the frequency of a word in contemporary American English, I recommend this site: http://www.americancorpus.org/
You can break it down by genre, check for nearby parts of speech, and pretty much do whatever a word geek could possibly want. My linguistics professor at BYU, Mark Davies, designed it (and several other corpora), and it’s a great, and simple, research tool.
March 16, 2010, 9:34 pm